


Face God into Hell

by barbaricyawp



Series: In Hell I'll Be in Good Company [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Blindfolds, Blow Jobs, Bondage, Brain Damage, Breathplay, Burnplay, Dirty Talk, Electrocution, Exhibitionism, Forced Orgasm, HYDRA Trash Party, Humiliation, M/M, Non-Consensual Blow Jobs, Objectification, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Public Humiliation, Spitroasting, Threesome - M/M/M, Torture, Verbal Humiliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-16 13:23:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16086968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barbaricyawp/pseuds/barbaricyawp
Summary: The asset doesn't recognize the prisoner, but that doesn't make it easier to hurt him.Or, to paraphrase one reader, Bucky gets fragments of his memory back at a time and carefully squirrels them away.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Heed the warnings, and let me know if I missed a tag.

* * *

Push, shove, a little bruised and battered.  
Oh Lord, I ain't coming home with you.

-Dead South, "In Hell I'll Be in Good Company"

* * *

 

Commander Rumlow leads the asset into a cramped cell. It is blindfolded and muzzled, buckled up into its tactical gear. It feels safe like this, secure in the dark as its commander guides him. It can only tell that they’re entering a cell when the pressure changes against its inner ear, the sounds more muffled and the air staler.

It smells a human. Or at least, human sweat and filth.

The asset turns its head to the commander, but its head is guided back forward. Pressure is applied to the asset’s shoulder and it bends its knees willingly, kneeling with its hands on its thighs. It waits.

“What is this, Rumlow?” a male voice says, directly in front of the asset. It knew it smelled a human.

“This is less about it,” the commander says, resting a hand on the asset’s head. The asset leans into the touch as the commander strokes its hair. “And more about you, Rogers.”

“I don’t follow." The man says. He sounds bone-exhausted. Perhaps they are in a holding cell and he has been here for a long time. Perhaps this is an interrogation. "You’ll have to forgive me; it’s been a while since I’ve solved a Nazi riddle.”

The word _Nazi_ scrapes along the asset’s neural pathways. Its fingers curl into its palms, trying to remember what the word means.

“Soldier,” the commander begins. The asset’s brain goes back to a pleasant static fog. “I brought you a gift. Take off your muzzle.”

It unclasps the muzzle and rests it on its lap, still waiting in the safe darkness of the blindfold. It’s easier to breathe without the muzzle, but the air is still stale in the cell. It takes deep, bracing breaths so it is prepared for whatever happens next.

“Won’t you give me another hint,” the man says, tone mocking, “I’m not following.”

The asset knows its commander does not like to be mocked, but he just scoffs. “Not just yet. I want to show you something. Soldier, hold out your hands. Palms up.”

The asset draws its palms out and waits. It has to wait a long time as the commander flicks what sounds like a lighter and ignites what smells like a cigarette. The fragrance of smoke billows in the room, cutting through the body odor and dusty air. The man coughs, once.

Then, a hot, burning circle sears into the center of its flesh palm. The numerous nerve endings there are incredibly sensitive, but the asset does not flinch. Its hand doesn’t quaver and its fingers don’t curl in to cradle the cigarette burn.

The asset remains still. The asset remains good.

“Are you alright?” the man asks, alarmed. This doesn’t make much sense to the asset. Why would the man be alarmed? Why would he worry for the asset? Who is he? Have they met?

These questions aren’t pertinent to a mission, so the asset forces them slide away. They are sticky thoughts, but the asset manages to do away with them. 

“Impressed, Rogers?”

“Disturbed, more like. What was _that_ about?”

“Order through pain—”

“Oh, put it on a bumper sticker.”

There’s a beat of silence and the asset waits in the dark. Whatever is going on between them, it’s perfectly silent.

“Soldier,” the commander splits open the silence and grits out, “take off your blindfold.”

The asset does as ordered, unwinding the cloth and blinking his eyes into focus. Indeed, they are in a small, dark cell. The man in front of the asset is bigger than it expected. The bigness is somehow wrong and strange with his accompanying face.

Perhaps this bigness is why he is cuffed and bound to a chair. And why that chair is bolted to the floor.

The man squints at the asset, eyes working over its face. Disbelief and something else passes over his expression. “Bucky?” he whispers. He looks up to the commander and now the asset recognizes that the something else was _panic._ “That’s Bucky? You have him? But…fuck, how?” He’s struggling against his bindings. The asset’s hand curls around the handle of its switchblade, prepared. 

The commander looks down to the asset. “Are you Bucky?” 

The asset shakes its head. “I’m the Winter Soldier.” 

The man lets out a harsh, dry sob. The commander laughs, but there’s nothing funny. The asset looks at the man again. It shouldn’t be dwelling on the man’s face or his strange bigness, but it can’t help it. It’s still confused. 

“Give me your hand, Soldier.”

The asset offers its left hand which the commander knocks away. “The real hand, idiot.” 

The asset lifts its flesh hand and the commander claps his hand over the palm, over the cigarette burn.

“Did that hurt, Soldier?” 

“Yes, Commander,” the asset says. It keeps its hand out, palm up.

The commander takes its hand by the wrist and brings it between the man’s legs, over the slight curve of his penis. By instinct, the asset molds its hand around the bulge, rubbing him through the rough fabric. Its palm stings, but when the man’s hips buck away, the asset rubs harder.

“Don’t look so glum, Cap. I’m sure you’ve been waiting for this for years. And the asset likes this. Don’t you, Soldier?” 

The asset nods.

Suddenly, the commander’s hand is fisted hard in the asset's hair, pulling its head up so its entire body strains towards his grasp. “Don’t tell me, tell him.” The commander nods at the man.

“I like being of use,” the asset tells the man.

“Don’t be rude. Address him properly.”

The commander has called him ‘Cap’ and ‘Rogers’ so far. The asset tries again, “I like being of use, Captain Rogers.”

“You’re goddamned sick, Rumlow.” 

“Much better,” the commander praises. He grips Captain Rogers by the jaw, digging his fingers into his cheeks until he pries his teeth apart. “Maybe you can learn from the asset’s example.”

Through his own cheeks, Rogers bites down hard on the commander’s fingers. The commander pulls back, flinching and swearing. If the asset did that, he’d go straight to the chair.

Rogers spits out blood. “Don’t touch me.” 

“Fine. Your buddy here will.” The commander sucks his fingers, though there doesn’t appear to be blood. “Soldier, open Captain Rogers’ mouth for him.” 

The asset uses its metal hand to pry open the captain’s mouth. Rogers tries to say something around the hard press of its fingers, but the asset can’t understand. It holds Rogers open like that, waiting for the commander.

“Good job, Soldier,” he says. A light, warm feeling swims in the asset’s head at the praise.

The commander unzips his own pants and feeds his cock into Rogers’ mouth. Rogers screams out, bites down against the asset’s fingers, but the metal is too hard. The asset looks up to its commander’s face, watching his expression as he fucks into Rogers’ throat. It can feel Rogers’ tongue flex against its fingers and the commander’s cock as it passes its fingertips.

When it realizes that its just here to hold Rogers’ mouth open, it lets its attention drift.

It seems strange to the asset that the commander would have the authority to treat a captain this way. Perhaps the captain has been instructed to resist. The asset has done that before, pretended to resist. It can remember eight agents holding it down and, though the asset could overpower a dozen agents easily, it pretended to be restrained. Even if it wasn’t real, it felt good to fight. 

Or, perhaps he’s not a captain at all and the commander is mocking a lower ranking officer with the title. That seems likely. Like when they call the asset “Sarge” just to see it blush. Just to see it flinch in shame.

The asset must have let its fingers slacken because Rogers’ teeth scrape past his fingertips. It’s just a moment—the asset has Rogers’ jaw wide open the moment it feels the slip—but his teeth must have made contact with the commander.

The commander slaps the asset over the face and then backhands it. Bright red handprints sting on the asset's face. “What the fuck did I tell you to do?”

The asset hangs its head, knowing better than to respond.

“Aw, it’s not his fault, Rumlow,” Rogers says. “Your dick doesn’t belong in there.” 

The commander seems to consider this. Then he smiles, the slow twisted one that sends the asset’s stomach plummeting. It doesn’t remember why this smile sends alarm signals, just that it does. The asset looks to Rogers, eyes wide with warning. It likes Captain Rogers, even if they're punishing him for some reason.

“You know what, you gotta point, Rogers. It doesn’t.” The commander settles a hand on the asset’s shoulder. “Stand up, Soldier. Unzip your pants.”

The asset unzips its pants.

This is not such an uncommon command, but the asset is caught off guard when the commander doesn’t have it bend over or lie down. Instead, the commander guides it towards Rogers, between his knees.

Rogers groans, but the asset sees that he’s not looking at them, not looking up at the asset. His eyes are on the wall to the left. Somehow, the asset knows that means Captain Rogers is afraid. Even as he says, “This is getting real elaborate, even for Nazis, Rumlow.”

The commander doesn't respond. He takes the asset’s soft cock in hand and feeds it toward Rogers’ mouth. At first, Rogers’ teeth remain clenched tight. The asset winces at the hard pressure and reaches out to guide Rogers’ jaw open. Once it’s past Rogers’ teeth, he stops fighting and lets it in. All the while, his wide eyes are on the asset, expression nothing short of disbelief.

The asset itself is surprised; to its limited memory, there has never been a time when the asset has been the recipient of oral sex. This must be the gift that the commander mentioned.

It doesn't feel like much of a gift. Especially with the way that Rogers' eyes rim red and wet.

Then the asset feels the commander push up against the cleft of its ass. The hard, dry jut of him makes the asset inhale sharply. It exhales as the commander forces himself inside. That’s more familiar.

The commander rips at the asset’s hair, straining its neck back into a painful arc and shaking its head, back and forth in mean little yanks. The backward bend and quick thrusts of his hips make it difficult to balance, and the asset has to brace its hands against Rogers’ shoulders.

When the asset looks down to Rogers’ face, it expects the same sharp rage that he has angled toward the commander. What the asset finds instead is mute sadness, almost pity. Involuntarily, the asset chokes on its next inhale.

“Yeah?” the commander says into its ear. “You like it when I’m a little mean to you?”

No. The asset doesn’t like it. It hurts.

“Yes, commander,” it says.

Around its cock, Rogers splutters. His face has gone from a deep red to a slight purple. The asset hasn’t been instructed to incapacitate Rogers. And Rogers will certainly suffocate soon. The asset withdraws, or tries to, but the commander screws his hips deeper into it and forces it deeper down Rogers’ throat.

“That’s it,” he says, looking over the asset’s shoulder to Captain Rogers. “Don’t come until I say.” Rogers’ is fighting the asset now, whipping his head back and forth.  The asset grips his shoulders harder, digging his fingers in at the tight pressure around him.

The commander waits until Rogers’ eyes roll back to let the asset come.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake  
                                                                  and dress them in warm clothes again.

-Richard Siken, "Scheherazade"

* * *

 

 

“We’re going to try something different today,” the commander says.

This doesn’t make a lot of sense to the asset; they do something different with Captain Rogers every day.

Yesterday, the commander had him stand on blocks with his arms bound above his head, hanging from the ceiling. They kept him there for hours on end until his thighs were shaking and sweat dripped from his forehead. Every time Captain Rogers slipped off a block, the commander punished the asset with a stun baton. 

The day before that, the commander tied them together, face to face, while he fucked the asset. That had made the captain cry big fat tears. The asset watched each of them fall.

The days before that are a blank mystery. But the asset vaguely remembers the first time they met and Rogers has grown a beard since he came into HYDRA’s possession, which means he must have been here for a long time.

Most men would crumple by now. But when the commander announces they’ll try something new, Rogers’ looks unfazed.

“Good, I was starting to get bored.”

The asset smiles, ducking its head immediately to hide from the commander. When it glances back up, Commander Rumlow hasn’t noticed, but Captain Rogers has. He grins at the asset, big and hopeful. As if it has done something particularly brave.

Somehow, the asset knows that Rogers values bravery above all else. 

Commander Rumlow kicks Rogers’ in the ribs. He takes it in stride, without flinching. Perhaps he’s a Winter Soldier, too. Maybe this is the preliminary training that the asset doesn’t remember. By the end of this, Rogers may be a Winter Soldier, too. That wouldn't be so bad.

“Soldier,” the commander says, and the asset straightens in attention. “Take Captain Rogers to the showers and get yourselves washed. There are clean clothes waiting for both of you there. See to it that he changes into them.” 

The asset takes Rogers’ by the shoulder and none too gently guides him to his feet. He hauls him to the showers, expecting a fight the whole way, but Rogers is silent as they move through the halls. He’s focused, clearly memorizing each turn of the hallway. The asset takes note of his observations and plans to inform the commander later.

When they get to the showers, Rogers' eyes immediately lift to the bugs planted throughout the room, his attention flicking over each black surveillance camera wedged between the tiles of the shower.

“You always bathe with an audience, Buck?”

“I’m not your Bucky.”

“You are, though. I know it."

 The asset has no reply.

Rogers allows the asset to strip him down, raising his arms for the sleeves and widening his stance to drop his trousers. Under the clothes, his sour smell is stronger. The asset’s nose wrinkles and it hustles to shepherd Rogers under the running water.

The water is cold, but Rogers doesn’t complain. He faces the freezing stream and sighs into it, entire body slouching toward the downpour. The asset watches him, curious as it strips out of its own tactical gear to join him. 

“They haven’t let me shower since I got here,” Rogers says by way of explanation. He scrubs his bare hands over his naked skin, rubbing away the filth as best he can. Grime is still coated to his skin, and the asset can still smell the stench of him. Rogers points to the soap in the built-in dish. “Can I?”

The asset doesn’t often give commands or grant permission. It shakes its head, taking up the soap bar for itself. The commander instructed them both to get clean, so the asset cleans itself first. There isn’t much to clean; it succumbed to maintenance and routine sanitization last week. It's careful to watch its genitals and between its cheeks; if they're training with Rogers, there will likely be a sexual component to today's exercises.

Next, it rubs the bar against Rogers vigorously. Scrubs until his skin is flushed pink. It pushes against his shoulders, tugs him by the hip, to guide him in a slow circle. As it washes, it assesses Rogers. Even though the asset remembers bruises on Rogers’ dislocated shoulders from yesterday’s training, his skin is perfect everywhere. The asset cannot reconcile this.

It hasn’t been instructed to gather intel. But it hasn’t been prohibited, either. “Are you a Winter Soldier?”

Rogers’ face darkens. Water beads in the creases of his furrowed brow, dripping down his long nose. In this moment, the asset realizes that Rogers is handsome. He’s a handsome man.

Even if he is too big for his face. 

“No,” he says. “But are Winter Soldiers super soldiers?”

The asset nods. It doesn’t know many of the details about its manufacture. Just this, “I am designed after the original super soldier.”

This perplexes Rogers. He looks the asset over, jaw flexing in tension and apprehension. “Which super soldier?”

“Captain America, of course.”

 

\---

 

Rogers spends the rest of the shower in silence, and he’s still glowering as the asset ushers him out and scrubs him dry with a towel. It then guides him to sitting on the shower seat. The asset casts one look back at him to see if he’ll attack while its back is turned, but Rogers seems debilitated. Gutted out, somehow.

The asset decides it’s safe to leave him unrestrained.

As promised, the commander has left a fresh change of clothes for each of them, labeled with their names in little black bags. The asset rips open the bag marked CAPTAIN ROGERS and frowns at the uniform.

It’s not like any uniform that HYDRA would issue. It’s blue, for starters. But there’s also a bright, white star on the center of the chest. The asset double checks the bag, but the label is clear. The uniform is for Rogers. 

It shakes out the uniform and when Rogers sees it, his entire body tenses. “Please, Bucky,” he says, voice small. “Don’t make me wear that.”

“I’m not Bucky,” the asset reminds him and drops the uniform on his lap. “Put it on, or I’ll put it on for you.”

Rogers looks up to the surveillance camera above the mirror.

The asset gives Rogers a moment, tearing open his own bag. This uniform is a little less…spangled than Rogers’, but it still looks strange to the asset. The clothes seem as if they are from a different era of warfare. 

If it is given a coat, the coat is usually tight fitting and buckled in close. This trenchcoat is loose, comfortable even. The fabric is coarse, but pliant—unlike the Kevlar straight-jacket that the asset is used to. It smells like gunpowder. 

When the asset is fully dressed, it turns to face Rogers who is still naked, his head cradled in his palms. Water drips from his hair. He, himself, seems to be dripping. 

The asset sighs and sits next to him. “Captain Rogers,” it says, laying a hand on his back. “It’s so much harder if you struggle like this.”

The captain’s back heaves and shudders with a wet exhale, then the man is sitting up straight. He stares at the asset, examining it. “What happened to you?”

The asset doesn’t know how to respond to that.

“What do you remember?”

“Not as much as the people around me,” it responds honestly. “I don’t have a memory like you or the commander. Mine is subject to gaps and erasures.” They are approaching HYDRA secrets that the asset certainly shouldn’t be sharing. But if Rogers has the clearance to meet the asset, perhaps he won’t live long enough to cause a problem.

Rogers’ impending death churns in the asset’s chest, mingling with the knowledge that if anyone is going to assassinate Captain Rogers, it will be the Winter Soldier. 

“Whatever HYDRA wants from you, you should give it,” the asset advises. “They won’t stop until they have what they want. And we’ll both suffer until then.” It lifts the uniform for him, offering again.

Rogers winces, but takes the uniform from it. “You really don’t remember me at all?”

“I remember the stun baton and the blocks,” it offers. It wants to help Rogers, it really does. “And being tied together.”

Rogers sighs and steps into the uniform. He pulls it up slowly and the asset gets bored waiting. It hangs the towel on the back of the door and when it turns around, Rogers is fully dressed. In the uniform.

The asset absorbs the red and white stripes alternating across Rogers' torso. The white star. There was a cowl wasn't there? There was a shield too, wasn't there? The asset's neurons sizzle and pop, firing where they'd been dark for years.

Recognition. This is recognition.

The asset recognizes him. Captain America. How? How does he know him?

The fan that's been running in the window suddenly hurts the asset’s ears. The whump whump whump of the blade like the blood rushing in shellshocked ears. Bombshells. Like bombshells behind enemy territory. The boom of the bomb falling and the earth rising and shattering around the impact. Captain America calling for backup. The snickt prattle and chatter of guns. The high pitched whistle of _his_ sniper going off right next to _his_ ear. A Nazi falling in the snow.

A Nazi. Wasn’t that what Rogers had called the commander?

The asset staggers back against the sink. “I knew you,” he says.

Rogers looks over his own uniform and back up to the asset, his expression empathetic and soft. He advances closer.

“I knew you,” the asset repeats because there’s nothing else to say.

Rogers takes the asset's hand, the asset's flesh hand. On brutal instinct, it hauls him by the wrist, pulling his arm behind his back to pin him to the wall. Rogers goes easily for a man of his size, even slumping against the tile.

“I’m sorry, Buck,” he says.

The asset begins to ask, “What for?” when the shower room door opens.

Five agents in riot gear shuffle in. They cuff Rogers immediately and try the same with the asset. But it resists, shaking them off.

“What for?” it asks Rogers again, but its voice comes out high and loud. Everything is confusion. Everything is chaos. It’s begging with Rogers. With the man in Captain America’s uniform. He has questions to answer.

A needle stings into its neck and the questions lose their importance. Everything loses its importance, including Rogers fighting against the agents, including the reinforcements that crowd into the shower. 

The asset is lead out of the room and knows with mute calmness that it’s headed for the chair.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly have no idea how long this is gonna be. I guess let me know if y'all want more.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for graphic depictions of violence and torture by car battery. No sexual violence in this one, though.

* * *

Pleased to meet you.  
Hope you guess my name.

-The Rolling Stones, "Sympathy for the Devil"

* * *

 

 

“I hear you’re having trouble sorting pertinent information from extraneous details, is that correct, Soldier?”

The asset is still strapped to the chair, teeth still rattling from its last wipe. It isn’t even sure exactly where it is, or which handler is speaking to it. But it knows this:

“I knew him.”

“You _think_ you knew him,” the handler responds. It’s dark in the room, and his head is backlit by a light so bright that it obscures his face. “Why is that?”

The asset can’t remember. It shakes its head. “I don’t know. I just knew him.”

The handler hums. A pencil scratches across paper. 

“What do you remember about him?”

“His name is Captain Rogers…” the asset falters. It thinks there’s an association between Rogers and Captain America, but it could just be the asset getting its captains confused.

The handler records this information and moves on. Apparently this association is unimportant. “What have you learned about Captain Rogers?”

The asset thinks back to the way that Rogers tracked the hallways, spotted the surveillance cameras. It should report this. It doesn’t. “Nothing that I can remember.”

“Good, good,” the handler murmurs, writing some more. “Are you still convinced you remember Captain Rogers?” 

“It’s not important,” the asset responds honestly.

This, too, seems to be the right answer. The handler jots down one more note, stands, and turns off the bright light. The asset can see his figure move towards the door.

“Better wipe it one more time,” he tells the techs. “Just in case.”

A rubber stopper is fed between the asset’s teeth. The chair leans back. Just as the electricity begins to ricochet through the circuits, the asset realizes it is still wearing that strange, antiquated uniform.

 _My sergeant’s uniform,_ the asset thinks, just before electricity zaps through its skull.

 

\---

 

The asset is lead by four agents, one in front, two at its sides, and one bringing up the rear. Each agent is stiff backed, muscles moving so tightly and carefully that the asset can feel their anxiety like a shark feels electromagnetic currents in the water. They come to a cell door.

Before the first agent will open it, the agent bringing up the rear shoves a stun baton to the back of the asset’s neck. A warning.

The cell door opens and inside is a man the asset doesn’t recognize wearing a strange, spangled costume. He has a black eye and the left corner of his mouth dribbles blood into a cloth gag. When he sees the asset, The man tries to call out something, but it’s muffled and distorted.

The commander stands next to him, repeatedly tapping a police baton into his palm. The asset can connect the dots between the battered man and the police baton. 

It regards the man coldly, awaiting the commander’s orders. The man's black eye is beginning to yellow around the edges, already healing.

 _Captain America,_ the asset thinks, but does not know why.

“This is Captain Rogers,” the commander says, tone a little tense. “Do you know him?”

The asset can feel the anxiety of the agents that surround it. The stun baton digs into the back of its neck. Even Rogers seems nervous for the asset’s answer. “No,” it says, “I don’t know him.” 

But it feels like it should. 

“Very good, Soldier.” The commander taps the intercom in his ear. “Rumlow to Tech. Day of wipe and the asset has no recollection of Rogers or the suit.” He pauses while the technician responds, then nods. “Copy that.”

Two techs come in, carrying two car batteries and cables. Both the asset and Rogers watch them enter. One battery is placed next to Rogers’ chair. They exchange brief eye contact, affirming what comes next.

Rogers is already bound to a chair, and the commander drags another to face his. The second car battery finds its home next to this chair. 

“Take a seat, Soldier.”

The asset submits to the chair. Its toes almost brush Rogers’, they’re positioned so close together. It allows the techs to clamp the cables between its thumbs and pointer fingers. The same is done to Rogers despite his thrashing and gagged yelling.

The asset watches dispassionately, wondering why Rogers struggles against the inevitable. It's admirable, if not foolish.

“Let’s try this again,” the commander says. 

The asset doesn’t remember what they’re trying again, but assumes it must have failed its last mission if the mission needs repeating. It will do better this time and perhaps then it can keep some of its memories of this man.

This man with a body too big for his face.

 _Captain America,_ its brain insists. But again, this could be a glitch in its brain functioning. The asset should report this.

It makes eye contact with Rogers again. The black eye is blue and green now, the yellow creeping in toward the center of the bruise. Despite the gag, he quirks a smile at the asset.

The asset decides not to report its malfunction.

The commander removes Rogers’ gag. Immediately, he spits on the commander and says, “What did you do to him?”

“Soldier,” the commander asks, amused, “what did we do to you?”

“Routine maintenance,” the asset answers.

Everyone in the room laughs. Everyone except Rogers. 

“We’re going to play a game, now,” the commander says, crouching to put a hand on the switches of each battery. The asset never likes the commander's games. “It’s very simple. Even you can keep up, Soldier.” 

Again, they are laughing. Rogers grinds his teeth.

“I’m going to ask you both some questions. If you get it wrong, he gets zapped,” the commander nods towards Rogers. “If he gets it wrong, you get zapped. Copy that?”

“Fuck, no, I don’t—” Rogers starts.

The asset interrupts, “Copy that,” saving Rogers from himself. It settles into its chair, flexing its hands against the clamps. This is going to hurt.

“Alright then," the commander nods towards Rogers. "What is this man’s name?”

Everyone in the room shifts forward to hear the asset’s answer.

“Captain Rogers.”

The techs write that down.

The commander flips the switch and Rogers convulses in his chair, knuckles white, until the electricity is shut off.

“It’s okay, Buck,” Rogers says, voice barely wavering. “It’s not your—”

“Shut up, Rogers. His full name, Soldier. First and last.”

The asset doesn’t know. The asset hasn’t been given that information. “I don’t know,” it says.

The commander flips on Rogers’ battery again. The asset frowns; this is hardly fair.

“Problem, Soldier?”

Many problems. But the asset doesn’t voice them. It shakes its head.

“Good. Your turn, Cap. What’s its name?”

“ _His_ name," he starts pointedly, "is Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. My b—”

The commander flips the asset’s battery. Hot currents course through the asset’s body, buzzing in rolling waves just under its skin. The asset knows to forcibly relax its muscles and ride it out.

“That’s his name!” Rogers insists. “That’s his fucking name! Quit messing around, Rumlow.” 

The battery stays on until Rogers stops screaming, stops struggling. The asset shakes off the resounding sensation; it’s had worse with a car battery.

“Soldier, help the guy out. What’s your name?”

“The Winter Soldier has no name,” comes the asset’s instant reply.

A flash of something, just barely a memory, crosses its mind. Strapped to a table, attached to electrodes, HYDRA agents asking, “What’s your name?” until it gets it right: it has no name. The Winter Soldier has no name. 

The commander opens its coat and unbuttons its shirt. He strokes his fingers over the bare skin there, soothing the shocks from Rogers’ wrong answer. “Very good.”

The techs write something down, nodding and whispering amongst themselves. With its enhanced hearing, the asset can make out the word, “conditioning.”

The commander returns his focus to Rogers.

“You’re up. What’s its name?”

The captain looks torn. He shifts against the bindings, hesitating.

The commander turns on the switch and turns it off immediately. A brief, warning shock. “C’mon, Rogers. You’ve been given the right answer. Or, do you _want_ it to hurt?”

Rogers looks the asset in the eye, grinding his teeth. Something like resolve sets like stone on his face. “Your name,” he says, “is Bucky—”

Electricity. The commander turns up the voltage to its highest level, and the asset thinks that its skin might be peeling off, that its teeth might be shattering under the clench of its jaw. The buzzing electricity courses hot and fast through its metal arm. It smells its shoulder burning at the seam of metal and flesh. So close to its spine. 

The pain is so thorough, it only latently registers that Rogers is screaming. “Stop!” he screams, “I’ll say it. God, please, Brock. I’m _begging_ you. I’ll say he has no name. I'll say it. Just turn it off!”

The battery stays on.

Another slice of memory. This one more recent: _I’m not your Bucky._

Rogers has always called it Bucky, even when the asset insisted it wasn’t. Why does he want so badly for it to be Bucky?

Is that wanting worth hurting it? 

“I’m,” it grits out, barely able to move its lips. Its muscles are contracting so tightly, its bones feel like they might burst under the pressure. All of its body might burst from the shock. “I’m. Not. Bucky.”

The commander shuts off the battery. The asset drops back in its chair, less a body than a wound.

“Try again, Rogers.”

“It has no name,” Rogers rasps.

“Who did this to you, Soldier?”

“Captain Rogers.”

The asset’s muscles are too exhausted to hold up its body or head. It can barely breathe. But it rolls its head up to get a look at the man whose insistence did this to it.

It expects to feel loathing, or at least resentment.

But Rogers looks as wrecked as the asset. He’s been fighting the binds until he bled. The cuffs of his costume are singed under the magnetic cuffs. The asset had assumed the burnt smell was just coming from its flesh. It’s a comfort to know that they’re burning together.

Most mystifying: Rogers seems to be crying.

The asset doesn’t know if anyone else would weep for it.

_Who did this to you?_

Steve Rogers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO much for the comments and kudos for the last chapter! I've got the next one written and it'll be up soon. I just want to be sure that I get a couple chapters ahead before I post it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Graphic depictions of sexual violence in this chapter.
> 
> Also, this series draws a lot of inspiration from [Tolarian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tolarian/pseuds/tolarian)'s [I'll Carry You Home in My Teeth](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15992111/chapters/37310018). If you haven't read it yet, you're missing out.

* * *

“Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss.”

-John Milton,  _Paradise Lost_  

* * *

 

The asset decides to keep this name, Steve Rogers, for itself, testing its ability to lie to its handlers. Owning something, even if it is just a secret, is a precious novelty. 

Like a stone picked up by a child who marvels that something so lovely could be just sitting there on the ground. It’s the ownership that makes it special. The asset keeps it like that child, sometimes taking it out to wonder at the shape of it. At the weight of the name.

Steve. Not Steven. Steve Rogers, complete just like that.

The asset decides that, for now, it should abstain from telling Rogers himself. It wouldn’t be a secret unless the asset kept it.

That doesn’t make it any easier when the commander brings the asset back into Rogers’ cell. They play the game again, the one with the car batteries. At first, the commander asks easy questions like, “Does the Winter Soldier have a name?” and “What is that man’s name?”

The asset keeps _Steve Rogers_ a secret, even when it hurts the man.

But then the commander asks a question that even the asset doesn’t know the answer to. He asks, “How did the Winter Soldier come into Soviet possession?”

Rogers blinks, stunned. "How the hell am I supposed to know that?"

The asset is punished for Rogers’ wrong answer.

“Who did that to you, Soldier?”

“Captain Rogers,” it murmurs, staring at the man.

“Good," the commander praises. Praise feels good. "Rogers, how did the Winter Soldier come into Soviet possession?”

“I didn’t know ten seconds ago and I don’t know now—”

The asset is punished for Rogers’ wrong answer.

“Who did this to you, Soldier?”

They repeat these two sets of questions until the asset is panting, until Rogers doesn’t even acknowledge the question. To his credit, he never looks away from the asset. He watches the asset through it all.

“Soldier,” the commander says, at last. His tone suggests a change in pace. “What happens if you hold something and you let it go?”

The asset doesn’t understand the question, but it answers. 

“You drop it.”

 

\---

 

The next day, they bring the asset to Rogers’ cell very early in the morning. In his cell, there are two medtechs and an agent, both standing over Rogers, examining him. They’ve got medkits and clipboards. Rogers is crumpled on the ground, unrestrained.

At the edge of the cell, stands an agent that the asset knows by name: Rollins. Looking at him sparks the sensation of hands on its body, hands inside of it. Rollins is an enormous man, and he uses his body as a torture device.

The asset holds the secret name tight in its grip: _Steve Rogers. Steve._

“This might not be a good time,” a tech says, approaching the commander. “Rogers tried to escape last night.”

Rogers looks worse for wear. There’s a rip in his uniform that slices straight through the star. A dark patch of blood stains just under his ribcage. The blood might be his, or that of a HYDRA agent.

The uniform is beginning to wilt on Rogers’ body.

“And we had such a nice day planned for you, Cap,” the commander tuts. “I even invited some of the strike team down to play with you. But now I don’t think you can be trusted without sedation. And you’re no fun sedated.” 

Pharmaceutical sedation would explain the indolent tilt of Rogers’ head, the way his body melds against the floor. Still, Rogers has enough faculty to glare at the commander.

“Oh, don’t worry,” he continues. “This is why we keep a backup super soldier around.” The commander ushers the asset forward. “Just in case.”

The assets eyes drift up to the metal hook they’ve hung from the ceiling. Its eyes follow the the length of rope draped over it. The car batteries from yesterday are still in the cell, smelling of ozone. It wonders if Rogers knows what’s about to happen. If he can guess.

“Soldier, prop our guest up against the wall so he can see.”

The soldier scoops up Rogers by the armpits, leaning him against the center of the wall. “Buck,” Rogers slurs.

His head droops to the side and the asset guides it back up. “Don’t make trouble,” it murmurs to him.

“Can’t help it, Buck,” he says, “I _am_ trouble.”

The asset smothers its smile and stands abruptly. Obediently, it walks towards the hook and offers its wrists to the commander. The commander binds its hands behind its back with smooth nylon rope—the kind that cuts into flesh with enough pressure—and attaches the long rope to the hook.

The asset faces Rogers, stone-faced as it was trained to be.

“Am I to resist?” the asset asks the commander, but its eyes are on Rogers. Rogers is unpredictable, emotional in ways that the asset can’t predict.

The commander shrugs and looks to Rogers. “What do you think? Should he fight us or go down easy?”

Rogers’ expression fills with horror. “I can't...” he says, tone low and serious.

The commander shrugs. “Alright, you don’t want to choose, Rollins can. What’s your pick?”

The asset strains its head toward Rollins. He doesn’t always participate, but when he does, his actions are memorable. “Let’s demonstrate what the asset is for. I vote the easy route.”

The commander nods and rests a hand on the asset’s thigh. “Sounds good to me.”

For this, they’ve dressed the asset in gray sweats and a t-shirt. Now the asset understands why. Rumlow takes a pair of scissors and opens them against the hem of its shirt. He vertically slices open the shirt, not too careful with the asset’s skin.

Rollins lingers behind, slouched casually against the wall beside Rogers.

“Not gonna join?” Commander Rumlow asks him.

Rollins shakes his head. “In a minute.”

“Suit yourself.” Rumlow says. He opens the flaps of the asset’s now ruined shirt, but doesn’t bother to cut the rest off.

The scissors move down to the asset’s sweats, and the asset feels a rush of unexpected shame. Rogers’ bright eyes track every movement, absorb each new humiliation. The asset has been watched before, humiliated for spectators before, but this is different.

Steve Rogers is different.

It turns its head to the side, face hot as if it’s been slapped. Blushing. It's blushing. This doesn’t escape the tech’s notice.

“Three days since last wipe,” a tech says. The others take notes. “Asset displays signs of embarrassment. Redness of cheeks and unwillingness to face Rogers.”

“What scientific purpose could this possibly serve?” Rogers quips. But when the asset glances over to him, it sees that he, too, is averting his eyes.

The asset sighs in relief. Even when its pants are shredded off it. Even when Rumlow lays the heavy length of his cock against the small of the asset’s back and rolls his hips against it.

“What’s wrong, Soldier?” Rollins grunts. “You aren’t usually so shy.”

Rumlow glances down the asset’s thickening erection. “Not so shy down here, though.” He gives it a few firm pumps, squeezing hard at the head, rubbing at the precome that dribbles out. “No wonder it’s so embarrassed you’re here, Cap,” Rumlow says. He’s rocking his hips against the asset, not quite pressing inside yet. "It's dying for this."

“Commander’s talking to you,” Rollins says from Rogers’ corner. In one big hand, he grips Rogers by the jaw and forces him to watch the asset. “Pay attention.”

Though his face is clenched in rage, Rogers’ eyes are welling again. He cried yesterday, too. How odd.

The asset watches Rogers for a moment, then asks, “Why are you crying?” without considering whether its allowed to talk or not.

“Yeah,” Rumlow says. “Why _are_ you crying, Rogers?”

Rogers manages a twitch of the shoulders that passes for a shrug. “Must be allergic to Nazi assholes.”

The commander doesn’t care for this answer. He makes a low, displeased sound. The asset shouldn’t have asked.

In retaliation, the commander forces himself inside then, a long unmerciful plunge deep into the asset. The kind of plunge that's meant to dominate, meant to control. It squirms, shifting its legs wider to make room. Rumlow isn’t the biggest man in the cell, but it’s always an adjustment to his sheer girth. 

“You know something, Rogers?” the commander says, voice a little strained as the asset flexes around his cock. He presses his fingers into the asset’s mouth, fishhooking its cheek. The asset’s lips pull back to show his teeth. “The Winter Soldier wasn’t so easy going, back when it was in Soviet care.”

This has Rogers’ attention. He fights the drugs to sit up a little straighter, to pay better attention. The asset wishes he wouldn’t.

“Rumor has it that he bit someone’s fingers clean off. All they had left was a thumb on a stump. Scary isn’t it?”

Rumlow forces three, four fingers between the asset’s teeth. Its mouth strained open wide. He gives a few more hard thrusts, the kind that jolt the asset forward each time. “Now look at it.”

“Jesus Christ,” Rogers mutters, squeezing his eyes shut. “I can’t do this anymore.”

The asset is overwhelmed with the uncommon desire to put an arm around the sad slump of Steve Roger’s shoulders.

“We’re not so mean to it,” Rumlow promises, scratching the blunts of his nails up along the asset’s cock. “Are we, Soldier?”

“I like being of use,” comes the asset’s reply.

The techs write that down. 

“That’s right,” Rumlow wraps his hand around it, stroking it dry and kneading the head. “I’d say we’re even nice to it.” He clenches his fist so tightly around the asset that it sees stars. “Aren’t we?” 

The asset nods. Its thighs are quivering. It needs to come. Already. More shame floods it, but the humiliation somehow eggs it on. Makes its heart hammer against its chest.

Rumlow releases the asset’s cock. He pulls on the rope binding the asset’s hands to the suspension hook. As the rope tightens, the asset is forced to pitch forward at a ninety-degree angle.

By instinct, it pushes out its tongue.

This gets a chuckle from everyone in the room, techs included. They make note of it, using that word “conditioning” again.

“Asset submits to oral sex without orders,” one observes. 

The asset’s face flushes brighter, spreading down its neck and chest.

Rollins abruptly drops Rogers’ head to approach the asset, already unzipping his pants. He pushes into the asset’s mouth unceremoniously, cock squeezing against Rumlow’s knuckles. And even after opening its mouth for Rumlow’s fingers, it has to spread its jaw even wider for Rollins, for the heft of him.

Rumlow’s other hand reaches down between the asset’s cock, fondling for a moment before giving it a smack. “You’ll come from this or you won’t come at all.”

Its eyes water, fingers flexing and trembling. Each time Rumlow drives forward, it’s forced to take Rollins deeper. Even when there is nothing more for the asset to take. The tears drip down its face, some catching in Rollins’ pubic hair.

All while Captain America watches.

“Stop it already,” the asset hears Rogers say. “You said you wanted me, so take me. I’m right here, you cowards. Let him go.”

_That idiot is going to get the both of us killed._

The thought feels familiar, running through the asset’s synapses. But it can’t recall a time or a reason why it would think that about Rogers.

The commander’s hand grips at the asset’s ass, squeezing hard enough to bruise. “Too late,” he grunts at Rogers. “Maybe next time.”

Rollins reaches up and gives another tug to the rope, jerking the asset’s shoulders against its sockets. It shifts and exhales with the pain, pushing up onto its toes to give its joints some relief.

Rollins just pulls the rope tighter. He wraps the loose end around the asset’s throat, tight enough that the asset loses air. White static fuzz floats in its skull, sensation is isolated to the edges of its consciousness.

Seeing what he’s done, Rumlow laughs. “Nice one.”

Shuffling forward, the commander rocks a little deeper into the asset, pushing hard enough that it’s briefly lifted off its toes. The roll of his hips is a slow, dirty grind. The kind that fills the asset full enough to burst. It’s too full, on both ends. The pressure and pain confuses it. It’s helpless and overwhelmed.

It comes. 

Rumlow laughs and wraps his hand around it, giving its cock a few uncoordinated tugs. He’s mocking the asset more than anything, spreading its come over its length for Rogers to see. He rubs the come between his fingers, making a show of it. The techs make note of how much the asset comes. Rumlow rubs the come off in the asset’s hair.

All while Captain America watches.

The asset still hasn't been allowed to breathe yet. Its throat spasms, its whole body spasms as it struggles for air. Consciousness becomes occasional. It'll black out soon, and maybe that's a mercy.

Behind it, Rumlow pulls out to the head. The asset braces itself. He drives into it. Hard, so hard that the asset feels blood rush to its head. It gags on Rollins, who comes so deep down its throat, it cannot taste the sperm. 

Hot, wetness spurts inside the asset as Rumlow comes next. "Fuck yes that's good," he says, but the words are far away. 

The asset blacks out.

It’s only unconcscious for a brief moment before the rope loosens and Rollins pulls out to let the asset breathe. Sensation and pain rushes around the asset as it gulps down air. Rumlow retracts his fingers.

When the asset lets its head drop, Rollins holds him up by the hair. He slaps its cheek a few times. “What do you say?”

Spit and come block the asset’s throat. It chokes out, “Thank you.” It spits out a thick line of drool. “Thank you, sir.”

Rollins steps aside to show Rogers the asset’s face. He holds its skull by the hair like Perseus wielding the trophy of Medusa’s head.

“Want a turn?” Rollins mocks. 

On instinct, the asset’s mouth drops open. Its cheeks flush, even as it offers its tongue.

To Rogers’ credit, he barely winces. “Jesus Christ,” he says again. “Bucky, I’m so sorry.”

The asset’s fingers curl, the only part of its body that it can move. “Would you stop calling me that already?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't tell you how much your comments and readership means to me. I promise this series won't stay so dark forever.


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

It's not a silly little moment,  
It's not the storm before the calm...  
Nobody's going to come and save you.  
We pulled too many false alarms.

-John Mayer, "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room"

* * *

 

They have it sleep in the cell with Rogers. “Time to catch up,” the commander says. But the asset thinks that means, “time to observe you together.”

That first night, it crumples into a ball on the concrete floor and falls asleep instantly. At some point in the night, it wakes up. The cell is dark, but the asset’s eyes adjust quickly. Rogers is sitting on the cot, watching the asset.

“I wasn’t trying to escape,” Rogers says into the silence. His voice is raw, perhaps even earnest. “I wouldn’t leave you here.”

If this is true, the asset should interrogate Rogers. It should glean information about his plans so that HYDRA can prevent his escape. Instead, it says, “I don’t believe you.” Not completely a lie, but not really the truth either. The asset is tiptoeing the line of betrayal on both sides. 

It rubs the back of its neck then, glancing down the point of its elbow which makes an arrow to the surveillance camera hidden in the corner. With the back of its hand, it rubs the closed seal of its lips. _Zip it._ Rogers follows its line of sight, catches on quickly.

He’s smart, which is a surprise. Big and smart don’t usually go together like that. Rumlow and Rollins are good examples of that.

“Are you okay?” Rogers asks. He seems afraid of the answer. “I mean, I know you aren’t. But…”

“I’m fine,” the asset interrupts curtly, curling its knees in towards its chest. “No damage was sustained.”

Except for the destroyed shirt, the asset is completely naked. It’s used to the cold of the concrete floor, knows to take slow breaths and focus on relaxing its muscles. This cold is nothing compared to cryo.

Rogers is still wearing the tattered uniform, but he takes the thin blanket from the cot and wraps it around the asset’s shoulders. Stunned, the asset snatches his wrist, ready to throw Rogers against the wall.

“What are you doing?” it says, gripping Rogers’ wrist so tightly it can feel the bones in his wrist grind together.

“Just trying to take care of you a little. Like you took care of me.”

The asset snorts, looking over to the car batteries, still in the cell with them. Proof that the agents will be back soon for them. “I was just answering questions correctly. And I got you electrocuted more than a few times.” 

“That’s not what I…” Rogers trails off, looking ashamed. “I’m sorry about that, Buck. You have no idea how—”

The asset sighs, it doesn't want to do this right now. “I’m going to sleep.” 

“Alright, Bucky.”

Rogers doesn’t move.

“You should do the same,” the asset says, pointedly. It curls up on its side, closes its eyes. The cot creaks as Rogers spreads out over it.

“Alright, Bucky.”

\---

  

The next day, the asset is on edge. They've turned on the bright fluorescent lights, the unnaturally bright kind that sets the asset on edge. The car batteries are still in the cell which must mean that the agents will return soon to resume the game. It paces the cell and ignores Rogers’ questions about what it remembers.

Each time it hears footsteps outside the cell door, the asset stands at attention by the door, its hands clasped behind its back, feet at shoulder width. Ready to receive its handlers. Ready to receive its punishment.

No one ever comes.

The asset still paces.

“I don’t think they’re coming today, Buck.” Rogers says. “You can relax.”

“If I don’t submit to the chair soon, I’ll become erratic.”

Rogers’ brow tightens over his eyes. “What do you mean?”

The asset sighs. “It’s been at least five days since my last wipe. Unless I’m on a mission, I’m accustomed to a wipe every five days and then storage in cryo over the weekend.”

“And by wipe you mean…”

“Memory wipe,” the asset says.

Rogers just stares at it, horrified and dumbstruck. 

“My behavior becomes erratic without it,” comes the asset’s trained answer. It adds, “I get violent.”

"Christ, Bucky." Rogers exhales, rubbing his face in both hands. “Maybe you _should_ get violent.”

The asset has had enough. It takes Rogers by the throat and shoves him up against the wall. Rogers could fight it, but doesn’t. Even though he struggles to breathe against the metal grip. He remains calm, submitting whatever the asset does.

The rage passes. It sighs and releases him. “You’re going to get the both of us killed.”

“I already have.”

Even if it doesn't know why, the asset laughs at that.

\---

 

The asset’s memory is getting worse. It has recollections, heaps of them, but they are random. It cannot discern chronological order. Can’t tell which memories are from this week and which are from days ago and which are from another lifetime, entirely.

Was the asset someone else? Did HYDRA just crack open its brain and remove an entire person?

At some point, food is pushed through the slot in the door. It’s only enough for one person. Rogers bangs on the door, hollering for release until the footsteps recede. The asset groans at his antics.

“When was the last time they fed you?” They’ve gone days without water; its voice sounds like gravel.

Rogers shrugs. “A few days before you got here maybe.” 

“How long have we been in here?”

Rogers shrugs. “Damned if I know.”

The asset considers the tray of food and slides it over to Rogers. “You eat it. I’m fine.”

Rogers shakes his head and slides it back. “You’re the one who just…” He rubs his hands together, knuckles dry against his palm. He’s avoiding looking at the car batteries, at where the hook hung from the ceiling.

“They call it ‘hosting a party,’ sometimes,” the asset offers helpful. “In case you don’t want to say it.” Even though HYDRA agents are more than happy to use the asset's body to their hearts' content, most flinch away from words like "sex" or "assault."

“They do that…often?”

“I don’t know right now,” the asset says. “But I might remember tomorrow." It shrugs, the dilemma of its fractured memory a normality. "Now eat.” The asset slides the food back to Rogers.

"At least you're still as stubborn now as you were then."

"I'm sure the same can be said about you," the asset fires back.

Rogers sighs. The tray returns to the asset. “Let’s split it bite for bite.”

On the tray sits a tuna fish sandwich, a peanut butter ration bar, and a bottle of water. The asset tears the sandwich and bar in half. It drains its half of the bottle.

“Did you know that, in a water shortage, you shouldn’t try to conserve your water.” It says, finishing its first bite of tuna fish. The weight of food palpably hits the bottom of its stomach. It has always enjoyed that sensation. Going from empty to full. “You should just drink it all at once.”

“Really?” Rogers says, sounding genuinely interested. Rogers has a way of listening like that. “That’s pretty much the opposite of what they told us in the army.”

“Must be new research,” the asset agrees.

Rogers has already cleared his half of the ration bar, but he sips his water, rolling it around his mouth before he swallows. The asset understands; his mouth must be dry after so long without water. The asset can remember the parched throat, tongue, and roof of its mouth when HYDRA first began conditioning it.

It tries to remember more, but runs up against the familiar sensation that something has been scooped out. That’s a memory it wasn’t allowed to keep. It leaves a hollow gap between the asset's synapses. Neurons firing into nothingness like sparklers in the dark.

 “I wish you would just submit to them," the asset confesses. "It would be so much better for both of us.”

Rogers doesn’t quite look at the hidden camera, but his head twitches. “You know I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” The asset asks, frustration mounting.

Rogers shakes his head. “I have to get us out of here.”

The asset finishes its tuna in silence. Rogers sips his water bottle, and eventually takes the asset’s advice in finishing it. The plastic bottle crinkles in his hand. 

It’s Rogers who breaks the silence first. “You know, at first I thought this was a demented sort of kindness, letting us spend this time together. Now I realize it’s just another way to torture us.”

The asset snorts. “Thanks for that.” 

“That’s not what I mean, Buck,” Rogers says. His tone has the command and seriousness of a captain briefing before a mission. The asset finds itself sitting straighter. “I mean…when I saw you were alive, all I wanted was to do was spend time with you. To tell you about our childhood, and being young men in the city, and fighting together in Germany.”

Again, the asset’s head feels scooped out, discovering more that they took from it.

Rogers sighs, “But this isn’t the place for it. It’s torture. For both of us.”

The asset considers this quietly. It hadn't even thought about what it would be like to speak to Rogers without surveillance. To ask all the questions it wants without fear of punishment. The idea is delusional, insane in its absurdity.

“Look,” the asset says and is surprised to hear its voice waver. “I know my memory is shot to shit, but I know this. We’re not going anywhere any time soon.” 

This turns out to be true. 

\--- 

When the asset wakes up next, its brain is even worse. The asset is getting random, unorganized flashes of memory. There’s a pier that stretches out into the gray fog of the east coast. There is a woman in a red dress, dancing with Rogers, with Steve. There’s a green lit enemy bunker that fills the asset with unspecified terror.

These memories are too confusing. They’re more emotional than logical, and the asset has never been good with emotions. It sits in the corner, holdings its knees.

In his infinite kindness, Rogers takes a seat near it, but not quite next to it. The asset is grateful for the distance. Every time it looks at Rogers, it feels like all its neurons are firing at once.

“I have some ration bars squirreled away. Are you hungry?”

The asset shakes it head. It ate yesterday. It can go another few days. A week, even.

\---

More time passes, though it’s difficult to track without light or meals. The asset remembers a fall, a plummet into the snow. The commander had said something about a drop, and the asset wants to question Rogers about it. Wants to know if he had anything to do with the free fall feeling suspending its limbs. Impact is inevitable, and the asset finds itself longing for the collision.

But it knows the techs are still listening, observing it. And it doesn’t want to be punished any more than it has to be.

“You said you become, uh…erratic without a wipe or mission. Would it help if I gave you a mission?”

The asset’s cheeks redden, but it nods. It _would_ like a mission. A task. A chore. Any way to be useful.

“Find a way to keep track of time?”

The asset nods. Judging by the hunger in its gut, the chaos of memory, and the amount of times it’s slept, it can make an estimate. “We’ve been in here for about a week." 

“Alright, that’s good. Thank you.” Rogers puts a hand on the asset’s flesh bicep. The praise is warm as it washes over the asset. Not quite the sharp stop to its sudden drop that it was craving, but somehow better. “Can you find a way to keep track of the hours?”

It tries, it really tries. At first it counts the seconds, but its memory jumps forward and back spontaneously. One moment, it has counted two thousand three hundred and forty nine seconds. The next it is in the hundreds again. And then its back in the thousands. Three thousand and five. One thousand six hundred and one. Twenty-five. This is not a reliable way to keep track of time. 

“I haven’t failed the mission,” it tells the captain, hoping to delay punishment. “I am still calibrating my options.”

Captain Rogers doesn’t seem bothered. He shrugs. “Do you need another mission in the meantime?”

Again, the asset wants to avoid punishment. So, it says, “I will put my full effort into this mission.”

“Okay, Buck,” Captain Rogers says generously.

With surprise, the asset realizes that Rogers is grateful for the break from the agents, even if the stretch of boredom makes him fidgety. He pries loose a piece of concrete from a crack near the wall. He grips it between his thumb and middle finger and scrapes it across the ground.

The scraping sound isn’t too high to grate on the asset’s senses, but it watches curiously. For a moment, the asset thinks that Rogers is just scratching the ground in random patterns. Then it realizes…he’s _drawing._

The asset looks on as Rogers draws a street. He fills it in with buildings and cars parked along the curbs. Each gesture of his hand is quick, but purposeful. The asset recognizes the street, but not the city.

“You’re an artist,” the asset marvels, just as Rogers begins to draw tiny windows in each building.

Rogers looks up at him, beaming. He drops his head and lowers his voice to a volume so quiet that the scratch of concrete is louder than his voice. 

“You used to steal me pencils,” he whispers. “One at a time until I had the full set.”

The asset finds this hard to believe. The asset wouldn’t risk exposure via theft for something as trivial as art pencils for Rogers. It rests its temple against the cool concrete, watching Rogers sketch until it falls asleep.

\--- 

The asset dreams of following Rogers down long train corridors. Nothing happens in this dream. They just pass from car to car, completely mute. Everything is silence, everything is hush, except for the metallic shuffle of the rail wheels on the track.

\---

 

It wakes up again to the chatter of teeth. Its own teeth, it realizes as the cell has dropped temperature significantly.

The asset’s teeth aren’t the only ones chattering. Rogers is curled up on the cot. Though it elevates his body from the frigid floor, the asset still has the blanket.

Without making a sound, the asset creeps into the cot. It lies on its side, curled around Rogers without touching his body. Already, the move to the cot warms it significantly. When it drapes the blanket over both of them, heat fills the space within moments. Rogers’ body radiates heat for the asset to absorb and give back.

The asset can’t remember the last time it shared warmth. 

Except it _can._ The asset can remember crawling into bed with a thin—no, a _scrawny_ —man, shivering from cold and illness. It can remember complaining, though not exactly what it said or why, about how _fucking stubborn you are, Steve._ It remembers how that body felt against his own, like something sacred to protect. It can remember the ridge of that bony back against its chest as it pulled him closer for warmth. Pulled him tight until the chattering and shivering stopped, and even then, Bucky still held on.

_I knew him._

The asset has to face the reality that it might have a history with Steve Rogers.


	6. Chapter 6

* * *

“As He died to make man holy,  
Let us die to make man free!  
His truth is marching on.”

-Julia Ward Howe, “Battle Hymn of the Republic”

* * *

 

HYDRA tries a new tact. They start pumping music in through loudspeakers. It’s an old-fashioned jingle, sung by a chorus of overenthusiastic women. 

 _Who's strong and brave here to save the American Way?  
_ _Who's vows to fight like a man for what's right, night and day?_

It doesn’t bother the asset, who is accustomed to torture by music. It knows to think of a different melody in its head. It knows to let the sound wash over it like white noise. Soon it _will_ be white noise, random sound and nonsensical words.

 _Who will campaign door to door for America?_ _  
Carry the flag shore to shore for America?_  

The effect is stronger on Rogers, who winces and groans the moment the song comes on. “Really? This?” he says, but he’s not talking to the asset. He must not be as accustomed to torture as the asset is. This inadequacy makes the asset sad for Captain Rogers; he hasn’t been properly trained as a super soldier.

The drawing on the floor goes from idle to manic. Harsh little digs into the concrete instead of smooth, long strokes. He’s trying to distract himself, but if the trembling in his fingers and labored breathing are any indication, it’s not working. He’s ripped off the collar of the soiled uniform and stuffed the fabric into his ears. The asset knows that will provide some relief, but not enough. 

The asset uses its metal hand to pry a bigger chunk of concrete from the crack near the wall. It’s a longer, more slender piece than the one Rogers got for himself. When it gives the piece to Rogers, he smiles up at it with complete warmth.

“Still getting me pencils,” he laughs.

The whole floor becomes neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Using the cover of the song, the asset whispers to Rogers, “I recognize these places.”

They smile at each other, backs to the surveillance camera, huddled over their secrets.

 _We can't ignore there's a threat and a war we must win!_ _  
Who'll hang a noose on the goose-stepping goose from Berlin?_  

When Rogers begins rocking, the asset sits next to him and hums the only song it knows: “Battle Hymn of the Republic." It takes deep gulps of breath so that it can hum louder than the speakers.

Rogers lets out a shaky laugh. “You used to love that song,” he whispers. “You loved singing it when you didn’t want to hear what our teachers had to say.”

The asset doesn't remember this, but likes the idea of it. Likes thinking of itself as resilient and defiant where it is now compliant. It hums louder, sprinkling in the few words that it can remember, but never more than a word at a time. At first, this is enough to soothe Rogers. But the song continues for hours and hours.

 _Who will indeed lead the call for America?  
_ _Who’ll rise or fall, give his all, for America?_

The only benefit of torture by “Star Spangled Man” is that the asset can use it to track time, to complete the mission that Captain Rogers issued it. The song lasts about 180 seconds, three minutes. The asset borrows Rogers’ discarded makeshift chalk at the end of the song to record a tick. This is how it tracks the hours. This is how it will track the days.

The asset shows Rogers that it has completed its time-keeping mission, and he lays a proud hand on its back. “Good job, Buck. Keep it up.”

The mission helps the asset keep it together. Feels right to have a purpose instead of just blank static sizzling between its ears. But the asset is only keeping track of its own psychological wellbeing. It forgets to worry about Steve.

The lyrics no longer make sense and are just a long cacophany of sound. Each time the song stops, there is a brief three seconds of peace that has both the asset and Steve Rogers sighing in relief. When the song starts up again, they both go tense. The asset finds itself dreading certain parts of the song more than others. It hates the call and response most, for some reason. Steve seems to flinch most at  _The Star Spangled Man with a plan!_

It has carved 700 ticks on the wall when Rogers suddenly starts kicking at the wall. Hard. The asset rushes over to him, grips him by the collar to haul him back.

There’s a large, cracked dent in the concrete of the wall. It shouldn’t be enough to threaten the integrity of the cell, but it might be enough to concern the agents.

“I can’t do it much longer, Buck. I thought I could, but…” 

_Stalwart and steady and true!  
Forceful and ready to defend the red, white, and blue!_

“Fuck!" He kicks again. "I wish they’d just turn off that _damn song_!”

He rams his foot against the wall again and a piece of concrete topples to the floor. The asset hears the metatarsals crack in his foot. If he doesn’t quit it soon, HYDRA agents will join them within the second. 

The asset glances back to the car batteries. It doesn’t know if it can play the game again and keep all these secrets. _Steve Rogers. The train. Sharing a bed with Rogers._ Commander Rumlow has a way of getting under its skull and extracting exactly what he wants. The asset can’t let that happen.

It can’t go back to the chair.

Much too roughly, the asset seizes Rogers. Rogers fights it a little, trying to kick it again, but the asset just barely manages to wrestle Rogers into his lap. It cups its hands over Rogers ears and pulls him close.

Rogers still fights. 

 _Who'll whip the giant attacking America?_  
_We know it's no one but Captain America!_

“Calm the fuck down,” the asset hisses between its fingers. “Would you just…stop fighting me… _Steve, please!”_

Rogers stills. They both wait for the sound of footsteps, for the cell door the bang open, for anything to happen.

_The Star Spangled Man with a Plan!_

They both ease in relief, Steve slumping back against the asset’s chest, gasping. “I’m sorry, Buck. I just had to do...something.” 

His phrasing and timing is strange there, but the asset doesn't dwell on it.

“Help me remember the lyrics to ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic,’” the asset says in answer. Its hands are still cupped over his ears. “I can’t remember how it starts.”

“Mine eyes have seen the glory of a hundred circling camps,” Steve murmurs a few lines to it, and the tension in his body eases some. No longer a tight ball of anxiety. When he gets to the chorus, “Glory, glory! Hallelujah!” the asset remembers again, something that had been carved out with a large chunk of memory.

“We used to change the lyrics,” it whispers into the cup of its hands. “Glory, glory, what’s it to ya? Teacher hit me with a ruler.”

Steve snorts. “I think the teacher ends up getting shot in the next line. I never liked that.”

“Seems a little bit disproportional to punishment by ruler,” the asset agrees.

It rubs its thumbs into Steve’s temples, careful with the metal pressure. Its muscle memory promises that this is what Steve likes. And it’s not wrong. Steve slackens completely.

“Thank you, Bucky,’ Steve sighs. “Don’t let me…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence; he falls asleep like that, slumped against the asset. This is a new sensation for the asset, holding someone while he sleeps. The asset is comforted by the rise and fall of his lungs against its chest. Steady, everything about Steve is so steady even in crisis. But not quite enough to drift off itself.

While Rogers sleeps, the asset considers the wall. By its estimation, the bulk of their combined bodies should shield the dent from the cameras. But Steve has a hard head and the dent is much larger than any normal man could make.

Dust spurts from the crack, just a wisp and not enough for a camera to pick up. The asset squints at it, concerned. If the structural integrity of the wall is going to shift, then this is all over.

It doesn’t, the wall remains steady. But through the crack comes a tiny, furled scroll of…of…the asset squints…of  _paper_.

The asset bends forward, resting its head against the wall to hide its motions from the camera. For a breathless moment, it worries that Steve might wake, but he resettles into the asset’s lap and remains unconscious.

Using its flesh fingers, which are thinner and have more precise movements, the asset coaxes the paper from the wall. Inside the scroll is a tiny script:

YDOXPWDY JR JKGWGSV. VQGWIA VGSJVNQ. GT TNYIN.

 

The asset examines the wall again. The crack is minuscule, meaning the wall is likely refortified. It would take careful infiltration to penetrate this wall. Certainly a team. It presses its flesh hand to the ground, squeezing between the cracks. Cold air wafts through. They are in the cell block  on the exterior of the facility. Likely in the top floors.

Perhaps an outside job, then.

The asset re-examines the all capitals message. Looks penned and not printed. A neat, neutral script.

Nearly gibberish, but this is likely a code, judging from the length of the words and the repetition of letters. Vigenere, it determines after studying the paper for a moment. It is easier to decode Vigenere ciphers with a computer, or at least a paper and pen, but the asset manages to untangle it while Rogers remains asleep.

It inhales slowly and deeply at what it reads:

TOMORROW AT EVENING. THIRTY MINUTES. BE READY.


	7. Chapter 7

* * *

"What there thou see'st fair creature is thy self."

-John Milton,  _Paradise Lost_

* * *

 

The asset eats the code. That’s the safest bet, squirreling it away from both HYDRA and Steve Rogers until it can decide what to do.

God. What is it going to  _do_? Is this why Rogers gave it a mission to keep time? Is this why Rogers kicked the wall, pried open the crack in the floor? Does Rogers remember the asset as Bucky at all, or has then been a ploy? That last thought stings too much to entertain.

There is too much at stake. This isn't the type of decision that is usually left to the asset. Rogers might have been in communication with his team the whole time, sharing HYDRA secrets. Perhaps he was abducted on purpose. If he’s been relaying information to his team, then they likely know about the Winter Soldier. If this is the case, three things could happen:

  1. It will be confiscated by Rogers’ team.
  2. It will remain in HYDRA possession and stored in cryo freeze.
  3. It will be destroyed, either by HYDRA or Rogers.



The asset finds itself wondering what it would be like to be under Rogers’ care. If Rogers would punish it like HYDRA does, use it like HYDRA does. Where are Captain America's headquarters? Based on Rogers' horrified reaction to cryo and the wipes, it seems unlikely that they'd have their own version of the chair. But it's possible that they do and Rogers just doesn't know about it. Still, it might be better than life in HYDRA's care.

As the asset ponders this, Steve wakes up. He stretches his arms wide and big, joints popping along his shoulders and back.

“How long was I out?” 

The asset realizes that, even as it was thinking, it was mechanically counting rotations of the song. It checks its tally marks: there’s twenty of them since Rogers fell asleep. Since the asset found the coded note.

“Just an hour.”

Steve nods and rubs his face, still waking up. “I really wish they’d pick a different song.”

The asset offers him a piece of concrete. “Try drawing some more.”

Steve looks over the floor which is nearly covered in etchings of Brooklyn. He shakes his head. “I’m out of neighborhoods.”

The asset sighs. “There’s nothing else in the world you want to draw? Really, Rogers?” It has to abstain from saying Steve, already close to blowing their cover.

Steve shrugs. “I could draw you, if you’d let me.”

The song has just finished another loop and the asset records it in the tally. It waits until the song starts back up again to whisper, “Did I let you draw me…before?”

Before what, it doesn’t know. Doesn’t know what they scooped out of of its skull, or when they scooped it out. 

Steve just nods. 

“Hell, okay,” the asset grants. “You can draw me.”

It sits back against the crack in the wall, facing Steve and the camera, and hums “Battle Hymn of the Republic” while Steve draws. It tries not to watch, somehow nervous at the result. It doesn’t know what it looks like, not really. Has glimpsed itself in the reflective lenses of other agents and the windows of buildings, but even then it’s always wearing the muzzle and goggles. It knows its hair is brown, can see the strands when it leans forward. It thinks it might have blue eyes, like Steve’s, but it isn’t sure.

“Would you stop fidgeting for two seconds? Can’t draw a moving target.”

“Sorry, didn’t realize you were Leonardo DaVinci,” the asset grouses. This isn’t the way to address a captain, and it would be strung up by the toes if it spoke to the commander this way, but Steve just laughs.

“I like to think of myself as the DaVinci of asphalt scratching,” Steve says.

The asset laughs and then they both laugh together. It's a kind of magic, laughing with someone. Something that makes the asset feel full and warm and  _human_ in a way its never been allowed to feel.

Despite the asset’s original grousing, it does sit still for Steve’s drawing. It sits straight backed with its jaw raised proud. It imagines that this must be what Bucky would be like for Steve.

Steve looks up to observe the asset's face often, sometimes only making a single stroke before he looks up again. At first, the asset shies away from the attention. Attention like this is usually accompanied with punishment or criticism. But Steve just smiles softly and records what he sees. The asset gets used to it, even enjoys being seen.

“Alright,” Steve says after a stretch. He leans up and tucks the concrete chalk behind his ear. “Come see.”

The asset stands, gathering the thin blanket around its shoulders, and comes to crouch next to Steve. It blinks at what Steve has sketched:

A square jaw. A set of clear eyes. Flat brow. The sly quirk of a smile. A face. A person. A life. 

“That’s me,” Bucky says, incredulous.

At the sight of himself, pain explodes just behind Bucky’s temples and eyes. It’s a pain so intense that, for a moment, he confuses it for the electricity from the chair. It’s a terrible burn, worse than the chair. Worse than anything he’s ever felt before. He feels as if his brain, the literal brain matter, might be convulsing inside his skull.

Steve is in front of him, holding his shoulders. “Are you okay?” He shakes him by the shoulders and Bucky holds his head, flinching. “What’s going on? Bucky?”

 _Bucky_. Bucky Barnes. His name is Bucky Barnes.

“Steve,” he might say. “Help me.”

Steve doesn’t have a chance to. HYDRA agents swarm the room. They break down the door and crowd the cell full with their bodies, with their riot gear. And at first, Bucky fights. He breaks an agent’s nose, shatters the collarbone of another. A man falls to the ground when he elbows him in the stomach. A man screams in pain when they headbutt. Two gunshots sound and Bucky whips around to see if Steve is alright, if Steve is still alive.

He has to be.

Commander Rumlow is holding the gun. Steve Rogers is still standing and calling out to Bucky. It’s with relief that Bucky realizes Steve hasn’t been shot; he has. Twice. The bullets still inside him, embedded in muscle. One on the leg and another in the shoulder. Rumlow has the gun trained on Bucky’s head, a clear and easy shot in this small cell.

“Get on the ground, Rogers. Don’t fucking try me.”

Immediately and without hesitation, Steve raises his hands and drops face down to the floor. Something breaks when Bucky sees Steve hit the ground, the desire to fight evaporates completely.

The asset raises both hands and surrenders.

Over the loud speakers, the song is still playing. They lead the asset out into the hall to the tune of _The Star Spangled Man with a plan!_ They are headed for the chair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update might be a little later than usual, but it should still be tomorrow! Thanks so much for reading and showing support!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you guys ready for some graphic violence? Beware mutilation and character death ahead. Also, brief sexual violence.

* * *

“They’ve got the orders breathing down their necks.  
I’ve got the motives, but I am not a bad man.”

-Trevor Powers, “Clad in Skin”

* * *

 

The asset has been wiped, brain matter scrubbed out at the creases. But the damage has been done: he remembers. He remembers _everything._ For instance, he remembers that his name is Bucky Barnes and that there is a man named Steve Rogers in this facility. He doesn’t remember how he knows him, or why these names are of value, but knows with certainty that Steve Rogers’ survival is more important than the survival of anyone else. HYDRA agents included. 

He also remembers this:

Something is going to happen tonight, and it’s important that Steve Rogers is ready for it.

Commander Rumlow approaches the chair, but his footsteps come slowly. Hesitant, almost. “Did you know we were watching you?” he starts.

Bucky looks up at him, dead eyed and without fear of punishment. “I don’t remember.”

Rumlow grinds his teeth. “What did you two talk about in the cell?”

“Battle Hymn of the Republic,” he says, flatly. “I don’t remember anything else.”

TOMORROW AT EVENING. THIRTY MINUTES. BE READY.

Is it tomorrow already? 

Rumlow doesn’t look fully convinced, but the shift of his eyes suggests that he wants to be. “Who was the man in the cell with you?” 

_Steve Rogers._

“Captain Rogers,” he answers. 

“And what’s your name?”

 _Bucky Barnes._  

“The Winter Soldier has no name.” 

The commander reads the clipboard that the techs hand him. They relay some information about the asset’s brain patterns being normal. How it should be able to remain functional for another mission. 

The commander nods and seems to deliberate for a moment, eyes on the wall just behind the Winter Soldier. Then he comes to a decision. The clipboard is exchanged for a leather-bound notebook.

“Longing,” he tells the asset without preamble. “Rusted."

"What is this, Commander?" Bucky says, trying to maintain the asset's neutral tone. He just barely misses the mark.

"Furnace.”

Bucky closes his eyes, breathing in deep. His shoulder hurts along the seam of metal and bone. There was a time when pressure applied to that area was the best way to get the asset to comply. When its shoulder was still healing over the embedded metal. When every touch there burned with infection.

“Daybreak. Seventeen.”

Was the asset ever seventeen? The asset was someone, once. Someone with a name. The asset remembered that name, once.

“Benign. Nine.”

The asset feels a twitch in its consciousness, a shift and a slip. What was that name again?

“Homecoming. One.”

There’s something, somewhere to grip, something to haul the asset back up out of the Winter Soldier. When the asset grasps for that something now, fingers close around nothing. 

“Freight car.”

The asset plummets. 

“Ready to comply,” it says.

“I think it’s time that the Winter Soldier put an end to Captain America. Don’t you, Soldier?”

The asset nods. “Yes, commander.”

\---

Commander Rumlow leads the asset into a cramped cell. He is goggled and muzzled, buckled up into his tactical gear. He feels claustrophobic like this, confined in the dark as his commander guides him.

He feels wrong, like he’s been given conflicting orders on an essential mission and can’t establish priority.

The commander gives him a pistol and the asset walks into the cell. “Do what is right for your country,” Rumlow says and closes the door. The asset shifts the gun and his finger is on the trigger. This is going to happen. 

Steve is already standing. He smiles when he sees the asset, bright and relieved. “You’re still alive.”

The asset nods mechanically. His arm is locked to his side, tightly controlled for now, but not for long. 

Steve sees the gun in the asset’s hand. “Oh,” he says, almost pleasantly. His eyes lift to the surveillance camera. “Is that for me?”

The asset lifts the gun, doesn’t want to, but does, and shifts its finger against the—

Steve is fast. Very fast. He charges the asset, knocking the gun from his hand and gripping him by the wrists. Relief jolts through the asset’s next heartbeat.

But the asset’s body interprets the charge as an attack, and its reflexes are faster than he can control. He side sweeps Steve’s ankles, knocking him to the concrete floor. In the same movement it kicks him across the room.

Clever Steve, he grabs the gun off the ground before the asset can. He shoots it at the asset’s shoulder, making dead aim for the bolt that binds the arm to the asset’s collarbone. The shot is a hit; the bolt fractures, and the arm slumps off his shoulder at an angle.

This gives him an excuse to pause, to examine the damage. He lifts his arm, but can only bend it at the elbow. When he tries to close the fingers, they twitch and won’t fold in. Steve shoots again, this time missing a bolt, but succeeding in hitting some essential wiring near the seam. He must have been using their time in the cell to gather intel on the arm.

“I know you’re in there, Buck,” Steve says.

 _That_ was the name. Bucky Barnes. He smiles a little.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Steve says, voice verging in hysterics. “I _won't_ hurt you."

The asset approaches. Steve snaps the gun in half and tosses aside the barrel just as the asset bends its knee up to the waist to curb stomp Steve’s skull. The asset closes his eyes, can’t bear to see Steve’s skull squashed, but when it comes down, his boot lands on flat concrete.

Steve had rolled away. Now he’s cornered against the wall.

“I’m your best friend. We fought in the war together.”

The Winter Soldier has fought and won many wars before they even begun. But the asset can recall a uniform, a green sergeant’s uniform.

The asset’s boot raises. His eyes sting and his whole body feels wrong. They scooped Bucky out and put something else inside. Something vengeful. Something twisted. That something is going to kill the only friend he’s ever had.

Bucky manages to hesitate.

This gives Steve enough time to grab his boot in both hands, leveraging it to slam the asset into the wall. He’s up after the asset in a moment, pinning him to the wall with his whole body. The asset struggles, but is at a disadvantage with his arm only working at partial capacity.

The arm is slowed enough that Rogers can seize it and pull it back at an angle. The remaining bolts strain against the asset’s bones. It’s a pain worse than being hung from the wrists. Bucky welcomes it with whole-body relief.

“Is this attached to your spine? Anything vital?” Steve yells, panicked at the edges. He pulls it harder when the asset doesn’t answer. “Is it?!”

He shakes his head, and Steve rips it clean off. The asset screams out in reflexive rage and genuine agony. Blood drips from the frayed wires and the metal arm twitches when Steve drops it to the floor with a heavy  _clunk!_

“I’m sorry, Buck. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want—”

“I woulda used it to kill you anyway,” Bucky says, even as the asset’s body gears up for the next attack.

He brings his flesh arm down on Steve’s shoulder, hears it dislocate where its elbow collides, but Steve already has him by the wrist and has him shoved against the wall. They both pant heavily, catching their breaths. The asset kicks against the wall, trying to pry his body from the wall.

“Someone is coming for you,” Bucky whispers, using the cover of sound. “They’ll be here at sundown.” 

“How did you—” 

“Note through the wall.”

The asset rears his head back and cracks his skull against Steve’s. Steve wavers for a moment, then drops unconscious. 

\---

“I gave you a single job.” 

He wakes up in a chair. Strapped in a chair by his legs, torso, and flesh arm. His left arm is gone, but the socket is no longer bleeding. The smell of burnt flesh signals the wound has been savagely cauterized. The room is cold. He still has his memory. They haven’t wiped it yet.

“One. Single. Job.” 

Steve Rogers. He needs to find Steve Rogers and soon. If he’s still alive.

God. Please let him still be alive.

“Are you fucking listening?”

Someone grabs the asset by the hair and shakes his head. He blinks and realizes Rumlow is before him, has been speaking to him.

“Did we actually break that brain of yours, or are you just plain stupid?”

The cell door has no windows and the shape is different from the western cells. He’s being kept in the inner cellblock, on the side of the facility farthest away from where they contained Steve.

They’ve dragged along the chair and the cryo tank, which bodes well for his own survival, but not Steve’s.

The asset is slapped across the face, and he lifts his eyes to meet Rumlow’s. The commander stands above him, one hand spread wide over the crown of his head. His pants are unzipped. Rumlow is exposed.

To Bucky’s horror, the asset finds its mouth dropping open, tongue pressed flat over its bottom teeth. It flushes down to its chest, embarrassed tears prickling under its eyelids, but it _can’t close its mouth._

“What happened?” Rumlow grits out, each syllable clenched in his teeth. “You remember something in that cell with Rogers?”

He stuffs his half-hard dick against the asset’s molars. Smacks the back of its head with his fist so his cock hits the back of its throat. There are techs in the room taking notes. If this continues, they might join in the punishment too.

“Don’t worry about that.” Rumlow slaps the asset over the face until it looks up at him. “We’re gonna wipe you clean. Fry all of that Rogers shit out. Start over. We know your triggers now.”

For a moment, the asset floats. It’s not here. Its mouth isn't full of dirty HYDRA dick. It isn't in this cell. The asset is where Steve is. He must be somewhere alive. He must be. He has to be. The asset needs to find him.

“Maybe we should bring him in here now,” Rumlow hums. He withdraws to rub messily at the asset’s lips, pushes back in slow and mocking. “Let him watch one last time.”

No. The asset doesn’t need to save Steve. Bucky does. 

He bites down.

Bucky doesn’t get much of Rumlow, but the amount that he chomps off is enough to spit out in a bloody chunk. As Rumlow leaps backwards, yowling in pain, Bucky tongues the taste of blood off his teeth.

“Go ahead. Bring him in.” On ghoulish impulse, he smiles at Rumlow, showing him what’s in his mouth now. “I think he’d like to see this.”

Rumlow takes out his gun and cocks it at Bucky’s head. “Look here, fa—”

The lights flicker, go black, turn back on. There's a beat of silence, and then the alarms in the halls go off. In the split second when Rumlow still has his eyes on Bucky, he catches the fear that flickers over his face. Objectively, this is funny. Rumlow's literally been caught with his pants down, bleeding into the crotch.

Bucky laughs. Hard. The kind of laugh that starts in the throat and deepens into his chest, down to his belly.

The techs are barricading the cell door while Rumlow struggles to compose himself and his clothes. There is a resounding boom, but it sounds far away. Likely near Steve’s cell block. The techs are cowering behind the cryo tank. This only makes Bucky laugh harder.

Rumlow grips him by the throat, squeezing around his trachea. “What do you know about this?”

Bucky can’t breathe enough to speak, but he hums a few bars from “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” It’s unlikely that he can even hear it, but Rumlow’s face reddens. There are now audible gunshots. And the gunshots are getting closer.

“Sir,” a tech says, “should we evacuate?” 

Another boom, but this one is closer and it rattles the entire cell. Bucky leans up against the straps that bind him to the chair, getting closer to the commander. “Good thing you love parties so much, Rumlow. We’re about to have company.”

“Fuck,” Rumlow spits.

“Sir,” another tech says, “the research…if Captain America knows what we know—”

“Good point, Fitzpatrick.” Rumlow says. He shoots the tech in the head. The others scatter toward the door, but he picks them off too. Then he aims his gun at Bucky.

“Good idea,” Bucky says. “Kill me so he’s _really_ pissed when he finds us.”

Rumlow seems to see the reason in this, erratic in his fear. He lowers his gun. “You knew about this, didn’t you?”

Bucky shrugs. “Don’t remember.”

And now Bucky’s really got him on the ropes because Rumlow’s face goes white. He staggers toward the chair again, and his teeth chatter before he composes himself and spits out:

“You have no idea how badly you’ve fucked up, Soldier. When Pierce hears about this, he’ll make this last month look like playtime.”

“And we all know how much HYDRA loves playtime.”

“You still don’t get it, do you?” Rumlow has his hand on the chair’s activation switch, knuckles going white. “This mission was for the country, for the world, for the glory of—”

“Glory, glory, what’s it to ya?”

Hand still on the switch, Rumlow pauses. “Wait, what?”

The cell door blasts open, dust and debris flying out from the impact. Rumlow slams down the switch before taking cover behind the chair. The chair tilts back slowly, engaging, as two agents, non-HYDRA, enter the cell. They are followed immediately by--

"Steve!" Bucky calls out, limp with relief. "Steve, he's--" He can't finish the sentence. His jaw clenches up and his muscles seize. Electricity flows over his brain, but he tries to focus past it. He grits out, “Steve...” before his body seizes up.

Steve might answer, he might not. The asset's eyes roll back into his skull, trembling under the shocks. The last thing he sees is the flash of a shield being struck down upon Rumlow, the ensuing spurt of blood.

In the dark of his eyelids, the electrical currents are becoming its only reality. The asset is reduced to just his body and its physicality, its absences.

“Bucky,” someone says, “Bucky, I’m here.”

There’s more chatter around the chair, but the voices are distant. Over the rattle of its own teeth, the asset can discern their words, but not their importance or prevalence to the current situation.

“How do I turn it off?” a woman asks. 

“Hell, if I know. Try the lever?”

“There’s gotta be a plug around here somewhere.”

There’s a man right before the asset, unstrapping its body and murmuring softly to it. The voice is low, familiar. Perhaps a handler.

The asset barely registers their chatter. There is something important it's forgetting, even through the electrocurrents. It was waiting for someone, but now can’t remember who. It was someone, but can’t remember who. 

“Found it!” 

The electricity stops, suddenly. Someone is talking and the asset realizes the sound is coming from its own mouth. It doesn’t understand what it’s saying. A name. A number. A name again. This isn't important. 

It’s about to black out. It was in the chair for too long, much longer than it has ever been before. It’s about to black out, but needs to be certain it’s safe.

“I know, Buck,” the man says to the asset, smoothing back its hair. “We’re gonna get you out of here.”

The man picks it up carefully, gingerly avoiding the chasm where the asset is missing an arm. The asset succumbs to the blackness.


	9. Chapter 9

* * *

“A mind not to be changed by place or time.  
The mind is its own place, and in itself  
Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.” 

-John Milton, _Paradise Lost_

* * *

 

 

The asset awakes to an unfamiliar setting. At first, it believes it is in a laboratory, strapped to a table. It is, in fact, lying on a table, but rather than the cold metal operating table, it finds itself on cushioning. An ambulance stretcher. And it isn’t bound.

It is, however, missing its metal arm. It can feel the lightness of its shoulder, the exposed wires still sending signals up its spinal cord. But there's nothing there. Just an absence like there is an absence in its head. An absence like metal scraping over concrete.

Something jolts the cell, and the asset quickly realizes that they are in transport. Strange. The asset is only ever in transport when it has been assigned a mission, but it can't recall being briefed. Why would they have lying down for a mission? Why would its arm be removed so crudely? 

When the asset casts a look around the van, it sees two operatives. There is a woman, asleep on the shoulder of a man. Neither is wearing a uniform, but both are in tactical gear. Strange, theatrical tactical gear similar to the asset's own. The asset cannot recognize either of these handlers. There's only one conclusion.

It has been abducted. 

The asset creeps down from the stretcher. It is one handed and can feel bullet wounds healing in its shoulder and thigh, but at least it has the advantage of consciousness. First, it goes for the man, bigger and more likely to pose a threat.

But it miscalculated the risk factors. The moment it slides the switchblade from the woman’s thigh holster, she’s got the asset in a headlock. Perhaps she'd only been pretending to sleep.

“Bucky?”

Another miscalculation. There’s another man in the vehicle, behind the asset’s immediately line of vision. It hadn’t done a full sweep. It knows better than that, has been _trained_ better than that. It’s malfunctioning. It needs to requisition maintenance.

Maintenance. The word prickles across its synapses. Zola, the doctor with the pinched Swiss accent, conducted gross amounts of maintenance. Sawed off the stump of the asset’s arm at the bone, foregoing anesthesia for research purposes. Tweaked the asset's blood with serums until it could heal a bruise within hours, mend a broken bone by the end of the day. 

“He took my knife,” the woman says, not loosening her grip on the asset. If she doesn’t release it soon, it will likely asphyxiate. The threat of suffocation doesn't send alarm signals, but the asset knows it should. "He doesn't understand what's going on."

“Told you we should restrain him, Cap” Sam says, plucking up his switchblade again.

“Let him go, Nat,” the blonde man says. He is clearly in charge of this mission. Captain, judging by Sam’s address. His tone is authoritative, but the asset can detect the strain in his voice, the stress over his face. Something is seriously wrong with their mission.“Please?”

She releases the asset and it slumps against the edge of the table, catching its breath. It’s not in shape to resist its capture. HYDRA won’t be pleased. HYDRA will punish it when the extraction team comes for it.

“Where are you taking me?” it asks.

The captain helps the asset sit on the edge of the bed, but his touch isn't restraining. “To a safe location.”

The asset nods, looking dead ahead. There is a protocol for abduction situations, should the asset become a prisoner of war. But it doesn’t make sense to the asset. It can't reconcile the protocol with what it understands about itself, about HYDRA. 

“Are you alright?”

It has no choice but to follow protocol, even if it’s nonsensical. When questioned, it is supposed to repeat, “Barnes, James Buchanan, Sergeant. 32557038.” As it says this phrase now, it senses that this is right. It is familiar, even. It's done this before, it's certain of it. 

The captain’s expression falters, confused. “Buck, do you remember what happened? Do you remember me?”

Protocol is to repeat this phrase without yielding any information to the enemies. “Barnes, James Buchanan, Sergeant. 32557038.” It's a comfort to repeat this phrase. The asset finds itself saying it over again, even without questioning. “Barnes, James Buchanan, Sergeant. 32557038.”

The woman touches the captain’s shoulder. “Steve…”

The captain grinds his teeth, staring at the asset. The look in his eyes is pure fire, rage. The asset braces for combat, but it never comes. The captain slumps onto a bench. The man goes to comfort him, the woman watches the asset, vigilant.

The rest of the ride is in silence. Save for the asset murmuring, “Barnes, James Buchanan, Sergeant. 32557038.” 

\---

The asset awakes to an unfamiliar setting. It is in a cell unlike any HYDRA cell that it’s ever seen. It's white, for one, and there are windows. The sun is setting over rolling green hills, but the asset cannot ascertain which hills. It cannot ascertain if it is genuinely looking out the window or if the hills are under simulation. It cannot even ascertain whose possession it is under. Is it still under HYDRA care? Definitely not Soviet, unless…

It looks down to its arm, or where its arm used to be. Now there's nothing. Still in the process of being remade then, of being improved into something useful. The wires aren’t even connected yet. That must mean Zola is around here somewhere, watching. If it really is in Soviet possession.

A man (not Zola) sleeps by its bedside, and the asset remembers him vaguely as _the captain._ He’s wearing a uniform with a star on the front, only solidifying the asset’s belief that it is with the Soviets.

Unbalanced without the arm, the asset stands at attention. This awakes the captain. In Russian, the asset says, “ _Ready to comply_.” 

The captain rubs his eyes sleepily, slow in the process of sitting up. “What?” In English. Strange.

“He said, ‘Ready to comply,’” says a woman in the corner. The asset didn't see her. The asset must be malfunctioning. She stands too, looking over the asset. Perhaps she is a tech, or another spy. She doesn’t stand like a captain. Her eyes don’t scrutinize the asset like a captain. “He thinks we’re in Soviet Russia.” Her head tilts, observing him. “I think.”

The captain takes her aside and they whisper to each other in fast and furious English. The captain raises his voice twice, but he’s quickly shushed by the Russian agent each time. Perhaps she outranks him, but the asset doubts it.

“He was in that damn chair too long. He remembered me perfectly in the cell. Perfectly, Nat. All of it.”

“We’ll get him someplace safe. There’s no need to—”

“I can speak English,” the asset interrupts, “if it helps." It adds as an afterthought, "Sir.”

They both turn to face the asset, appraising it. The woman looks concerned. The captain looks mortified. The asset finds itself intimidated and uncertain. An emotion like that is definitely a malfunction. It’s as if the gears in its head aren’t quite interlocking, don’t quite click together.

“Sir?” the captain repeats.

The asset nods, but senses its misstep and braces for punishment. Almost welcomes punishment; it would be something familiar in the midst of this chaos. “Do you prefer Captain?”

“Steve...” the Russian reminds the captain, voice soft and kind. The asset doesn’t trust her.

“No, let me ask him something.” The captain stands before the asset, hands locked in front of him where the asset can see them. This sets the asset at ease some. He’s taller by nearly a head and leans down to meet his eyes. The asset recognizes those eyes, but doesn’t know how. “Do you know who I am?” 

“My handler,” the asset guesses. “And I’m ready to comply. I’m ready for my mission.”

The captain nods, but he’s clearly frustrated. Another malfunction if the asset doesn't understand what it's doing wrong. Doesn't understand why it's displeasing its captain. “What if the mission is remembering?”

The asset thinks this over. It isn’t supposed to remember, but if its an order from a handler then… “I’m ready to comply.”

The captain rubs his face. “I guess that’s a start.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it for this part of the series. But it's not over yet! Stay tuned to "In Hell I'll Be in Good Company" as I'll be posting the second part of this story soon. 
> 
> Thank you so much for your continued support and readership. I have loved writing this for y'all and have more to share.


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